DEFINITIONS IX

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The air is best there, iron images bloom from its rose-trellis (images of the sun what else), behind them trees uprooted on the far bank: what leads to type over generality, to the description of thing; here the nameless statue holds her un-moulded sword, so who is she but there, in her own order; did you hide me behind this leaf you’ve never seen?

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What does she say to you from the round of stones, resting on her hip: that she could leave any time; that bronze is her Sunday outfit, that she’s someone you already know, a painter living up the street?

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I always sit here but now it’s raining too: same word wrong teleology, but did you ever put a word to your ear, like so, and hear the sea; listen to the craftsmen build their loose cities in the tidal hay? Can I hear them now, now that no one’s listening?

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Tell what you don’t know and answer with a question: isn’t that what bodies do, Venus and Adonis, regardless of what they say; is the sentence a lover, a landscape, begging for what it doesn’t know?

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Sometimes it’s night with no moon: is there an order before it becomes a command; did you ever let your hands wander until they were innocent again?